21-year-old Davenport singer-songwriter dubbed “a rising star” by MTV Music News

If you watch the blissful video of CJ Parker performing his song “Invisible” last year at The Spot in downtown Rock Island, you’ll see a star in the making – cool, confident, charismatic and commanding.

It’s obvious online, but the 21-year-old Davenport native also been blessed by MTV Music News, which recently called Parker a “rising star” and “a name you should probably start remembering.”

“Blending the genres of R&B, funk, soul, gospel, and even jazz, this kid has something to show the world,” the Feb. 5 MTV piece said.

With a combination of chutzpah and courage, Parker sought out a writer for the MTV site, submitted some of his music, and requested an interview. “I’m just grateful I got that, and hopefully it will lead to more opportunities,” the 2019 Davenport Central graduate said Tuesday.

“I’ve really been more serious in the past six months after doing some live shows and things like that. My next step is hiring an agent and get myself out there,” Parker said.

His father is a pastor, and when CJ was growing up, he was also choir director at Mount Sinai Christian Fellowship in Davenport. Parker was deeply influenced musically by both parents – his mom loved Broadway and his dad played everything from Prince and Michael Jackson, to classical. CJ sang in the church’s adult choir as a kid.

His family lived briefly in East Moline and Parker transferred from United Township High School the last quarter of his freshman year to Davenport Central, originally for basketball. Parker played the game his first two years in high school, but chose music as his true passion.

Picking music over sports

“I had so much more of a talent and love for music than I did for basketball,” he said. “When it came to music, it was something that came naturally, way easier to me. And something that I just really did love more.”

“I felt like myself,” Parker said of being part of music and theater. “A lot of times in basketball, I felt like an outcast because I was so different, but when I performed, I felt like the most confident person in the room. I needed, and still need music.”

He was in Central’s show choir and loved doing musical theater, including playing Beast in “Beauty and the Beast” his sophomore year. Parker was thrilled with the gorgeous, spacious new auditorium Central opened his junior year.

“I ended up really, really pushing music and they’re just amazing at Central. And I really felt like I belonged and felt a happiness with Central and the staff there,” he said. “It was just an amazing experience, being a part of such amazing ensembles.”

Parker really impressed Thea IntVeld, Central’s drama director, who remembered he played for the school talent show the end of his freshman year.

“He played piano and sang, and the entire group was just floored,” she said Wednesday. “He was so good. His sophomore year, I had to have him in the show, even though he had no experience being in theater.”

“He was just so good at it,” IntVeld said, adding he played a lead role in the next year’s “High School Musical.” “He loved our environment and he always wanted to be around everybody…I think we’ll see his name in lights someday, for sure.”

Parker studied music at Black Hawk College for a semester (including jazz with Edgar Crockett), but hasn’t finished his associate’s degree. “I’ve always wanted to be a band director or choir director,” he said, noting when he made friends at Black Hawk, he got into writing and recording his own music.

“It was so spontaneous. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t like I’m going to be an artist,” Parker said. “It just happened and that’s why I thank God for it, ‘cause it just came about and I released my first single and it was a great experience. If it weren’t for those people, I wouldn’t be doing this.”

That was first song was called “Space,” released last April. He’s recorded atEastside Studios in East Moline.

“My music is real. It’s heartfelt. It’s raw,” Parker said in the MTV feature. “I did not have a ton of hands in the music I have released. It’s authentic to me. Every chord, every word, every progression, it’s how I feel. I sit at a piano and press record, and see where it takes me. I don’t look up lyrics or ask for them, I create them from my own head.”

Playing for perfection

Parker’s band is called XII. The Roman numeral for 12 represents perfection, he said. “In our band, we strive for perfection, and put every note into each instrument with a professional precision,” he said.

The last live show his band did was in October at The Spot in Rock Island.

This summer will be his last playing tuba (which he’s also done since high school) in the Dubuque-based Colts Drum & Bugle Corps, which has 154 members who come from all over the country (including the U.K.) to play and tour.

“It’ssuch an amazing experience,” Parker said, noting he took the 2020 year off (which ended up being virtual due to COVID). “We go all over. I’ve performed at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Mercedes-Benz stadium in Atlanta, Buffalo Bills stadium in in New York.”

“We go through Texas, Kansas, all the way to the Pennsylvania area, Ohio — I mean everywhere,” he said. “We make a funny joke because the Championships are in Indianapolis, where the Colts play. So every time we go to these, we go to the Championships, we say that it’s our house,” Parker said of his Colts.

Dubuque is the smallest city nationally to host a Drum Corps International World Class drum corps. Founded in 1963, in recent years the Colts have become a championship corps, placing in the Top 12 at DCI Finals eight times.

Parker picked up tuba from his father, who played the instrument in the ‘80s with a drum and bugle corps in Rockford, Ill. CJ also played in the Central marching band and loved it.

“It opened a whole new world,” he said. “They’re very, very good, they go to nationals every year. I just learned to be a better human through the marching band. They teach life skills, and I learned so much from being in the marching band program.”

Parker plans to release his next single, “Repeat,” in a few weeks.

“It’s a six-minute long song. And it was three songs at once,” he said. “I was writing throughout the years and it was three separate songs, and it just didn’t seem to fit, and I put them all together. I was messing around and I was like, this is pretty good. So often with the help of some friends, Brian Fanning and Wes Julian, and I’m really getting that cooking. We’re finishing it up this week.”

He works as a special-education paraeducator at Davenport’s Eisenhower Elementary (where he does some music lessons), and is on the marching band staff at Central. This is his first school year in those jobs.

“I’m learning so much about kids, being around ‘em, they’re teaching me,” Parker said of Eisenhower students. “It’s been really cool being in this position – being around kids who just want to have fun. They want everybody to be their friend. All the faculty and staff, they do their jobs so super well.”

Being a teacher is his dream job.

“As much as I enjoy doing stuff with my band XII, and performing, I want to teach the next generation of students, and really bring diversity to the arts in the Quad Cities,” Parker said.